Little Moments: The Moment You Find That You're Right...And You're Wrong...

Have you ever taken a trip with small children? Specifically a preschooler and an infant? We have now gone on two trips since Little Lady was born. The first was to Disney World. In July. With a four-month-old.

Yeah, it was crazy. This particular trip we knew would be tough, but worth it. We enlisted the help of a beloved (and very brave) aunt to make the plane trip with me and the kids. We were piggybacking this trip on the end of a continuing education course Hubby was taking, so he drove down early and was, essentially, the pack mule. We loaded the SUV up with so much stuff there was barely room for the driver. And we followed up a couple of days later with little more than ourselves and the diaper bag on the plane. All things considered, the trip went spectacularly well. Travel was good, kids adjusted to sleeping in the hotel with no problems. It was hot as blazes and insanely crowded, but we were able to do the little-kid stuff at Disney without too much trouble. The extra hands from Auntie were invaluable. I hope she had fun too!

That trip went so well that Hubby was all excited to schedule a trip to the beach over Labor Day weekend. I have discovered over the years that "vacation" to me and "vacation" to Hubby look considerably different, however. For a week in advance, I'm upping the laundry quota to get all our clothes clean at one time (nearly unheard of during any other time). I'm making lists of things to "not forget"--formula, bottles, diapers, bathing suits, lullaby CDs, loveys, sippy cups, chargers for 15 different electronic devices, you name it! I'm lining up childcare for the day before we leave so I can somehow pack all these items in some sort of order without any little "helpers". And, then, once we get to our destination, I'm childproofing a new place. I'm trying to convince 2 very routine-oriented children to sleep in a new environment. I'm scheduling naptimes around activities around other naptimes. I'm either figuring out how to cook in a tiny kitchenette (ok, to be fair, if there's cooking, Hubby's probably doing that) or taking small children to restaurants--neither of which ever seem to be good options. I'm washing bottles in hotel room sinks and leaving them to dry all over the bathroom countertops. What I'm not doing is vacationing.

Having said all that, I wasn't really excited about the prospect of traveling anywhere farther than the end of my driveway. But, finally, with the promise of sand and sun (admittedly one of my favorite things EVER) and a 3-year-old who started asking, "Mommy, can we go to the beach?", we wound up on the road to Hilton Head, SC.

I'd protested that it was too much work. I'd griped about the poor sleep habits we already had to deal with at home that would surely get worse. But, I'd finally given in. And to a degree we could never have anticipated, I was right. It was the usual drill getting ready to go and the car ride was surprisingly ok. But, things rapidly went downhill when we tried to get the Littles to go to sleep. Little Lady cried nearly all night long for the first 2 nights. Since they had to share a room, Little Man stayed awake as well. They cried, I cried, and we all cried some more. I was convinced that I was trapped in a nightmare of crying babies that would never end.

Enter Mr. Level-Headed...He just happens to mention..."Did you notice Little Lady pulling at her ears today?" And, there's the light-bulb moment....

Yep, I spent the morning at a quick-care clinic with a baby who'd been trying to tell us for days..."People!! I didn't know I had ears until just now! But, now I know! And they hurt! Do something!" I'd like to say things went swimmingly from there, but that would be a bit of an overstatement. She got better slowly, but she's still not exactly back to normal.

On the other hand, I got to see this...